Hurricane Sandy Meets the Blessed Virgin

By Noreen Daly

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the neighborhood of Breezy Point in Queens (New York City) was left leveled, yet among the ruins stands a statue of the Virgin Mary, still erect and wholly untouched. See photo. This remarkable survival of the statue has led locals to dub it the Virgin Mary of Breezy Point. Though the rendering of Mary has not moved or changed, it is almost as if we are seeing the statue for the first time. Everything else has been burned, knocked down, and washed out to sea; Mary is all that remains. Perhaps God is reminding us that our materialist obsessions are temporal, and therefore will be swept away soon enough. Our hearts must reside in our faith, and not in material security, or we will be washed away, as well.